No sign of Nunavut mayor who's been missing since November

Jamesie Kootoo still missing nearly a month after he left for a hunting trip

On Nov. 26, the Mayor of Kimmirut in Nunavut snowmobiled into the rocky hills surrounding his Baffin Island community with a promise to return a few hours later with a caribou.

Four weeks later, after an intensive search that turned up nothing more than an abandoned snow shelter, the RCMP have announced they are scaling back the search for 67-year-old Jamesie Kootoo.

Coming in the same week that Mounties also announced that they were calling off the search for Bernard Pujuardjok, a missing 22-year-old from Kugaaruk, Nunavut, the announcement is a grim reminder of the hazards of the northern wilderness.

In Kimmirut, locals have announced they will continue private patrols for Mr. Kootoo.

“We’re still optimistic, but realistically, [survival] is a low probability,” said Tommy Akavak, fundraising coordinator for the search.

The last person to see Mr. Kootoo was a fellow hunter, who spotted the Mayor on the afternoon of the 26th. Mr. Kootoo was the only one not to come back from the hunt that day, Pitsiula Michael, a member of Kimmirut’s search and rescue committee, told the Nunatsiaq News in late November.

A search committee was formed, snowmobiles were gassed up, a Twin Otter was commissioned and volunteer spotters from Civil Air Search and Rescue Association were recruited. In the first hours of the search, patrols needed only to follow Mr. Kootoo’s fresh snowmobile tracks, but they soon lost the trail in a snowstorm that also grounded search aircraft.

In the days to follow, volunteers trickled in from neighbouring communities. On Dec. 9, a snowmobile train of 10 volunteers left from Iqaluit on the difficult overland journey to Kimmirut. “It’s our nature to go look for someone who’s lost,” searcher Adamie Ipeelie told a CBC camera crew at the time.

To many, the sensation of being stranded in the Arctic is well-known.

Born in the 1940s, Mr. Kootoo came of age in a Nunavut (then the eastern Northwest Territories) where Mounties performed patrols by dog sled and many Inuit lived nomadic lifestyles. A sergeant with the Canadian Rangers, in March 2008, Mr. Kootoo was patrolling an Iqaluit to Kimmirut sled dog race when he and his snowmobile fell 25 feet into a ravine. His pelvis shattered, Mr. Kootoo was unable to reach his satellite phone and spent 18 hours at the bottom of the ravine before he was found by fellow Rangers. To keep his head warm, he covered it in snow, he later told Northern News Service. Remarkably, he emerged from the ideal without a hint of frostbite.

Even in an age of GPS and emergency transponders, the Far North still routinely swallows people without a trace. On June 20, 2009, U.S. couple Gary and Ingrid Patigler disappeared while flying from Wolf Lake, Alaska, to Whitehorse in a Beechcraft Bonanza.

In July, 2010, Yukon RCMP Constable Michael Potvin was sucked into the current of the Stewart River while swimming away from a sinking boat. A week later, his body was discovered 50 kilometres downstream from where he disappeared.

Mr. Akavak says more than $10,000 in donations have flooded in to provide fuel, spare parts and food for search teams since Mr. Kootoo disappeared. Many of the donors know Mr. Kootoo, said Mr. Akavak, “people in the North, everyone’s related somehow.” Others, such as a donor from Toronto, were strangers.

In the opening days of the search, teams came upon a partially completed igloo and a butchered caribou — although it was impossible to know whether the camp belonged to Mr. Kootoo.

Located at the base of Baffin Island, Kimmirut is home to about 400 people. Like all Nunavut communities, it is not accessible by road and Inuktitut is the primary language. Many community members do not speak English.

Two weeks ago, the community voted in Mr. Kootoo’s replacement; Qinnuajuaq Pudlat, the hamlet’s long-serving deputy mayor. According to hamlet officials, Mr. Kootoo had not intended to run for re-election.

The record for solo arctic survival was set in 1967 by bush pilot Robert Gauchie, who spent 58 days on a remote Northwest Territories lake after running off course during a blizzard. However, Mr. Gauchie had food, warm clothing and a large quantity sleeping bags. Mr. Kootoo was believed to have little survival equipment with him at the time of his disappearance.

Private snowmobile patrols will be crossing over ground covered by previous patrols and aerial surveys, but searchers are hoping that they will spot Mr. Kootoo in a niche or depression missed by previous sweeps. “He could have been missed by just a few meters,” said Mr. Akavak.